


breakthroughs feel a lot like breaking down

by pan_ismyhomeboy



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Better living through Hannibal's therapy, Gen, Molestation, Past Child Abuse, References to Suicide, Self-Harm, Trigger warnings out the wazoo, Will Graham Needs A Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 04:14:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pan_ismyhomeboy/pseuds/pan_ismyhomeboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will's vehement denial of abuse in Trou Normand piques Hannibal's curiosity. When Hannibal presses, Will's terrible secrets spill out. Trigger warnings for the mention of past child abuse, molestation, self-harm, and suicide attempts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	breakthroughs feel a lot like breaking down

**Author's Note:**

> Originating from the Hannibal kinkmeme. I've been working on this all day, so while I'm not 100% happy with how it wraps up I just kinda wanted to submit it already.

Will knows what’s coming and while he can’t avoid it, he certainly doesn’t have to make it any easier for the man sitting across from him. He stubbornly avoids looking at any part of Hannibal, instead leaning back to gaze at the ceiling with the intention of counting cracks in the plaster. This is Hannibal’s house, however, and of course there are no cracks or signs of wear on the foundation. Everything is clean, everything has a place, everything is well-cared for and perfect and Will finds himself filled with the desire to start smashing things in this house that is so very unlike his own.

Hannibal asks him another question and Will ignores him again.

The silence stretches on, not so much awkward as tense and strained. It hurts his ears, anxiously twists his gut as he fights with antithetical desires: protection versus vulnerability. Defensive anger, even rage at this man for daring to approach his walls versus a desperate need for those walls to come down and Will to be seen for who he really is. Fear that Hannibal will reject the ugly truth bared across Will’s heart. A baseless hope that he would not.

“Tell me about your father,” Hannibal prompts softly for a third time, and Will want to claw the patience and understanding from the other man’s voice.

“I would rather die.”

“Do you want to die right now?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to kill yourself?”

There’s a long pause before Will shakes his head.

“Do you want _me_ dead?”

Will forces himself to stay still, eyes darting up to the ceiling again.

Hannibal allows himself the space of a slow, careful breath before continuing. “It is my job as a psychiatrist to ask these questions, Will. And it is my duty as a friend not to allow you to continue in such pain. Do you understand?”

“Do you want me to say that I hate my father?” Will asks, throat constricting and jaw set. “Do you want me to tell you that I wish he were dead, too?”

“It would be a place to start, at least.”

“Well I don’t. I don’t wish that for a goddammed second, but I sure as hell wish I were dead. I wish _everyone_ were dead,” he says suddenly, voice pitching up half an octave.

“Everyone except your father.”

“I hate you.”

“For pursuing this line of inquiry?”

“For being an ass.”

Hannibal nods once. “I can take your hate, Will.”

Will presses the heels of his hands against his eyes and in this moment he wants to tell the other man everything. He wants forgiveness. He wants to tackle Hannibal and punch his stupid face until his stupid hair is skewed everywhere and his stupid patient understanding beautiful eyes are black and blue.

He thinks, maybe, he’d like to kill something, not for the cathartic release of violence, but to wrap himself in the desolation and guilt he absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, knows he deserves.

“Were you truly surprised when Alana Bloom denied your romantic advances?”

“I’m a broken and unstable man, Doctor Lecter,” Will says bitterly. “I probably would have done the same in her position.”

“And taking that view of yourself, I wonder if you still would have approached her had you not been convinced she would say no.”

“What does this even have to--” Will suddenly crosses his arms tight across his chest, fingers gripping his sleeves.

“What would you do if you made yourself available to someone who would not reject you? To a viable sexual partner?”

Will closes his eyes. “Stop.”

“Have you ever been sexually active as an adult?”

“I said _stop_!”

“Yes, I heard you.”

The room seems to tilt behind Will’s eyes as he grabs the material of his jacket and slides nails down the arms. He springs up suddenly and almost seems headed for the door before he turns sharply on his heels. Calling his actions ‘pacing’ would be too generous, too purposeful. Hannibal remains seated as he watches and waits.

“I hate you.”

“We have already established that. Do you understand why you hate me?”

“Do you?” Will spins and looks at him, finally, for the first time in over an hour. “Do you have any idea how many psychiatrists I’ve seen over the years?”

“I would assume from your tone of voice--”

“Quit assuming.” He starts moving again, and to an unobservant outsider it might seem that Will moves with the air of a violent predator instead of trapped prey.

“I would be happy to once you’ve opened up to me.” Hannibal watches the way Will tugs on his sleeves, the way they sit one size too big on his arms. “You hate me because you cannot bring yourself to hate your father.”

“No _shit_.”

“What would you do if I asked you to take off your coat?”

Will stops in his tracks.

“May I see your arms?”

“I didn’t realize this was a strip club,” Will says tightly.

“Taking off your outermost layer in a room with a well-functioning heater is stripping?”

“You have yours on,” Will bites out.

Hannibal’s hands move to the buttons on his suit jacket and carefully slips them free. With fluid motions he shrugs his shoulders from the material and allows the jacket to hang almost haphazardly over the back of his chair. “It is quite warm in here,” Hannibal says pleasantly, and something in Will snaps.

“You wanna see me naked?” His hands are shaking so hard it takes three attempts to pull the zipper before he can yank his arms free of the protective sleeves. “Is that what you want?”

“Will--”

“No, no no no, it’s too late for take-backsies, you wanted the truth _and I am fucking giving you the truth_.” He flings the jacket as hard as he can before he scrambles to pull up his shirt, movements wild and out of control. Somewhere in his mind it feels freeing to do this, to finally yell and take his clothes off and force someone, anyone, to share his burden. Take it, he begs silently as this angry version of himself screams at the doctor, take everything from me.

He strips to his waist and starts on his belt when Hannibal finally stands up, Will’s name soft on his lips. “No,” Will says again, “no, you do not, do _not_ get to comfort me or calm me down, Christ don’t you dare--”

Will staggers and Hannibal catches him and Will swings his fist as hard as he can. He’s screaming again, voice breaking like he’s a young teenager again and he loses track of his words because _what_ he says doesn’t really matter, in the end. Dully, he registers that his knuckles are bleeding and Hannibal has Will’s wrist tightly in his own grasp. The drum of his heart resounds loudly in his ears, painfully so, and he can see Hannibal’s lips moving but can’t hear a thing. There’s blood seeping from the corner of the other man’s mouth and all Will can think about is hitting him again and again and again until the bones of his hands break and his wrists snap and the constellations of scars across both arms burst open again with blood.

He has no idea he was speaking until Hannibal’s voice suddenly cuts through the din of Will’s mind, somehow finding a place in all that chaos. Will stares dumbly until Hannibal repeats himself: “You are poetic when you’re in pain, but I will not allow you to hurt yourself in my home.”

The blood dripping from Hannibal’s cut lip dries before Will’s eyes, then rapidly disappears. “Are you happy now?” Will asks, voice too loud in his own head and he doesn’t think he’s ever been conscious while losing time, before.

“Breathe, Will. Can you do that for me?”

Will’s entire body trembles with violent shame as Hannibal steers him back to the chair before his knees give up completely. Everything is swimming as his vision tunnels, black spots erupting across the room and threatening to pull him under. “There’s no air,” he tries to say, only it comes out as broken sob as his instincts take over and curl himself protectively around his middle. There’s a tiny, dazed part of him watching all this from the sidelines with a clinical detachment, wondering how on earth he got by this long without a nervous breakdown. He feels like he’s dying; he feels like he’s going insane.

Hannibal moves behind Will and reaches out to grasp his bare shoulders, pulling up and back. “Sit up,” he says softly. “There is air all around you.” When Will doesn’t respond, Hannibal’s touch becomes a vice grip, fingers digging painfully into his skin as he jerks the other man to sit upright.  


The pain cuts through the haze in Will’s mind, grounding him in the present. His head lolls back to look up at the other man through a shimmer of tears; Hannibal does not look away.

“Breathe.”

Will breathes.

“Focus on my voice. Do not turn your gaze. Breathe again.”

Will breathes a second time and his tight chest opens enough for a decent half-lung of air. Hannibal’s fingers relax but don’t leave his skin.

“Again.”

Tears slide down Will’s face as he whispers, “I’m broken goods, Doc.”

“You are nothing of the sort. Take another breath.”

Will falls silent as Hannibal coaxes him through a series of deep breaths, and it takes nearly a dozen before the black splotches in his vision finally fade away. Another dozen and his breathing is still ragged but nearly returned to normal. Hannibal’s thumbs wipe away the hot tears dripping down Will’s face and he cradles the other man’s head when Will finally closes his eyes.

“My dear Will,” the doctor murmurs, stroking the dark, matted curls under his fingers. “My dear, good Will.” 

He presses a hand to the back of Will’s head before withdrawing, only returning a moment later to lay his own jacket across the younger man’s naked torso. Will burrows into the fabric, still warm with Hannibal’s body heat and smelling strongly of expensive aftershave and a scent all Hannibal’s own. Will breathes deeply within his own cocoon, where he can have the dignity of hiding his tears. “Did I lose time?” comes the muffled voice beneath Hannibal’s coat.

“I think you did, yes,” Hannibal says, checking his watch. “It has been nearly two hours since you first arrived. You were quite upset.”

Will takes a breath and tries to collect his darting thoughts. “Did I hit you?”

The comforting hand returns to the back of his head, fingers threading through his messy hair. “As I said, you were quite upset. I’ve already forgiven you, if that’s what has you worried.”

“My father hit me. When I made him angry, he hit me.”

Hannibal continues to stroke his hair and says nothing.

“And now I’ve hit you, when you made _me_ angry.”

“A father hitting his child is a far cry from one grown man striking another who refuses to stop prodding at a subject that hurts. You are not your father, Will.”

“I always deserved it,” he mumbles into the coat. “I wasn’t good enough, I didn’t listen enough, I was a bad kid, I... he’d hit me, and then he’d...”

There’s a long pause and Hannibal squeezes Will’s shoulder. “I need to ask, Will.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“I know.”

Will collects himself for a moment before whispering, “Go ahead.”

“Did your father ever molest you?”

If there were anything left to be broken in Will, it would be breaking for the second time that day. “I didn’t want anybody to know,” Will says, voice going higher again. “I didn’t want anyone to know what he was doing, that I’d been so bad and I tried so hard and he, he just, he wouldn’t...”

Hannibal lets him curl into himself this time and cry, face buried in his hands and all of him buried under the jacket. He waits a few minutes after the sobbing subsides to the occasional hiccup and asks, “How are you feeling?”

Will shifts under his cocoon and finally peeks out, eyes red-rimmed and shining. “Exhausted. Maybe a little numb.” He wipes the tears away from his eyes. “Dehydrated, maybe.”

“I can fix one of those. One moment.” Hannibal leaves and returns with a cup of water, pressing it into Will’s hands as he kneels by his feet. “Drink. And remember your breathing.”

“Not enough left in me to panic anymore.” The cold water soothes Will’s ravaged throat and clears his head a bit more. “There’s... nothing there right now. It’s empty, I’ve got absolutely nothing left in me.”

“That was a tremendous amount of emotional energy you’ve just expended. Your mind cannot cope with anymore and is cutting you off, so to speak. This is a normal reaction.”

Will nods and takes another sip, an eerie calm settling through his limbs. “I’m sorry for hitting you.”

Hannibal looks up at him with a wry curl of his lip. “You had incredibly poor form in your distress. I think I will manage to survive.”

Will looks down and manages eye contact for a moment before looking away and draining the rest of the water from the cup. “Are you going to tell anyone?”

“Of course not. This is not my trauma to tell.” He reaches out with his hand to take the cup, but Will offers his own hand instead. Hannibal nods and closes his fingers around Will’s, letting the other man squeeze tightly. “I would be more than happy to help, but only if you want me to.”

“Cat’s out of the bag now, isn’t it?” Will asks without a trace of amusement in his smile. “Might as well, now that you know I’m, I’m a...”

“That you’re the same man I’ve always known?” Hannibal says firmly, and Will tightens his grasp. “The only person I think less of now is your father.”

“You don’t even know him.”

“I know he hurt you, and that is all I need to know.”

Will gives another tired smile. “I tried to kill myself a few times, when I was younger. And when I was older. God, it is so weird to say that without feeling anything. How long does this last?”

“Your emotional numbness may stay until you fall asleep, or for several hours, or only a few more minutes.” He reaches up with his free hand to brush back Will’s hair. “I cannot say. Would you like to stay here tonight?”

“Yeah. I don’t feel like driving. Or sleepwalking.” He closes his eyes again, gives a resigned sigh. “The nightmares...”

“The nightmares will have to deal with me,” Hannibal says. He leans in and presses a kiss against Will’s temple. “For what it’s worth, you did a tremendous amount of work today and you should be proud of yourself. I am.”

“Are we gonna have to talk about this again?”

“I think you should. But only when you’re ready, and only if you want to.”

Will nods and squeezes his hand once more. “Hannibal, I -- thank you.”

Hannibal stands and pulls Will with him, coat falling from his body. “Not at all, Will.”

Will leans against him as Hannibal escorts him to his bed, and he must be even more exhausted than he thought because he nearly blacks out the moment his head hits the pillow. Vaguely he feels the other man pulling his shoes and socks from his feet and covering him with a blanket.

"There are extra sleeping clothes in the dresser, if you want them."

"Is this ethical?" Will asks, voice already slurring with sleep. "Letting your patient sleep in your bed?"

"You're not my patient tonight," Hannibal says, smoothing his hair one last time before pulling away. "Get some rest. I'll wake you in the morning."

Will is unconscious before Hannibal finishes speaking.


End file.
